IKEA turns to driverless semis with nobody in the cab

You could soon be driving down a Texas highway, look over at a massive delivery truck and realize the driver's seat is completely empty.

Kodiak AI plans to start hauling IKEA products between the Dallas and Houston areas later this year with nobody in the cab.

The company has spent years preparing for this step, but removing the safety observer changes the equation.

What happens if something breaks while the truck is moving at highway speed? Is someone secretly driving it from a control room? How does it react to a police car or ambulance? And, yes, I wanted to know what keeps a hacker from getting anywhere near something as important as the steering or brakes.

So, I took those questions directly to Kodiak founder and CEO Don Burnette to find out how the company says these driverless trucks will handle them.

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"The decision to remove the driver isn't based on any single test or milestone," Burnette told CyberGuy.

"It's the result of years of operating experience, rigorous validation and a clear safety case that gives us a clear, evidence-based framework for determining when the Kodiak Driver is ready to operate safely without anyone in the cab." Kodiak calls its autonomous driving system the Kodiak Driver.

The company also uses something called an Autonomy Readiness Measure, or ARM, to track its progress toward running long-haul trucks without anyone aboard.

As of the end of September, Kodiak said 96% of the claims and evidence required for its long-haul safety case were materially complete, up from 93% at the end of August.